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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



POEMS OF THE 

IRISH REVOLUTIONARY 

BROTHERHOOD 



POEMS 

OF THE 

IRISH REVOLUTIONARY 
BROTHERHOOD 

THOMAS MacDONAGH 
P. H. PEARSE 

(Padraic MacPiarais) 

JOSEPH MARY PLUNKETT 
SIR ROGER CASEMENT 

Edited by 
Padraic Colum 

AND* 

Edward J. O'Brien 




(New and Enlarged Edition) 

Boston 

Small, Maynard & Company 

1916 






*l 



Copyright, 1916 

By Small, Maynard & Company 

(Incorporated) 



First edition, July, 1916 
Second edition, enlarged, September, 1916 




DEC -I 1916 



DCU445890 



<r 
€? 

4 

CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction ix 

. Prologue: Ways of War. By Lionel 

Johnson I 

Thomas MacDonagh: 

John-John 3 

Song from the Irish .... 6 
Envoi to "Songs of Myself" . . 8 
Of a Poet Patriot . . . .11 

Death 12 

Requies 13 

Though Silence Be the Meed of 

Death 14 

Wishes for My Son . . . .15 
O Star of Death . . . .18 
At the End 24 

Padraic H. Pearse (Padraic Mac- 
Piarais) : 

Lullaby of a Woman of the 

Mountain 25 

Ideal 27 



CONTENTS 

Page 
The World hath Conquered . . 29 

To Death 30 

To Death (II) . . . .31 

The Dirge of Oliver Grace . .32 
On the Fall of the Gael . . .37 
For His Mother's Consolation 
(Written before his own and his 
brother's execution) . . .40 

Joseph Mary Plunkett: 

White Dove of the Wild Dark Eyes . 41 
The Glories of the World Sink Down 

in Gloom 42 

When all the Stars Become a 

Memory 44 

Poppies 45 

The Dark Way 46 

The Eye- Witness . . . .49 

I See His Blood upon the Rose . 52 

1847-1891 53 

i%67 • • 54 

The Stars Sang in God's Garden . 55 

Our Heritage ..... 56 

Your Fear 57 

Strife 59 

Sir Roger Casement: 

In the Streets of Catania . . .61 
Hamilcar Barca . . . .63 
Lost Youth 65 



CONTENTS 

Page 
Epilogue: The Song of Red Hanrahan. 

By W. B. Yeats 67 

Notes by P. H. Pearse . . . .69 
Bibliography 71 



INTRODUCTION 

The years that brought maturity to 
the three poets who were foremost to 
sign, and foremost to take arms to 
assert, Ireland's Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, may come to be looked back 
on as signal days in Irish history. They 
were days of preparation. The youth 
of Nationalist Ireland had turned to a 
task — the task of learning — of learn- 
ing first the Irish language, of learning 
then about Irish public affairs, and at 
the end of learning arms and about the 
handling of men. 

The generation that became conscious 
twenty years ago turned with hope, 
faith and reverence to Gaelic Ireland. 
From the remnant of the Gaelic- 
speaking people they would learn what 



IX 



INTRODUCTION 

civilization their country was capable 
of attaining to. Those who regarded 
themselves as the historic Irish nation 
were then rediscovering their origins 
and their achievements : they were Celts; 
they were of the race of Brennus and 
Vercingetorix, of Cuchullain and Maeve, 
of Columbanus and Scotus Eirigena; 
they were of the breed of the warriors 
who had shaken all empires although 
they had founded none; of the race of 
the missionary saints, and of the lovers 
of learning who had made themselves 
the patrons and protectors of European 
culture. The Ireland they willed would 
not be an autonomous West Britain, 
but a resurgent Gaelic nationality. 
And their race-dream was as fantastic 
perhaps as the race-dream of any other 
reviving people. 

Those who mastered the Irish lan- 
guage began to learn it in classes 
spontaneously organized in the cities 



INTRODUCTION 

and the villages, and they made them- 
selves fluent by living with fishermen 
and small farmers in far islands and 
remote villages. Class-work made a 
comradeship between young men and 
women. Their first control was over 
classes and their first intervention in 
public affairs was from the lecture- 
platform. 

Padraic Pearse was the first of the 
young men to be seriously spoken of 
in the Gaelic League. He had learned 
Irish in one of the few schools where 
it was then taught, and he took up 
Irish studies in University College, then 
part of the old Royal, and now part 
of the new National, University. He 
graduated from University College and 
was called to the bar. 

Meanwhile he had mastered the lan- 
guage and had learnt about Gaelic life 
by living for long spaces of time in a 
cottage he owned in one of the poorest 



XI 



INTRODUCTION 

districts of West Connacht. He was 
on the executive of the Gaelic League, 
then the most vital organization in 
Ireland. He became editor of the 
Gaelic League weekly An Claidheamh 
Soluis (The Sword of Light) and he 
announced his intention of making it 
"the organ of militant Gaeldom." He 
wrote articles continuously in Irish and 
English. During the years of his editor- 
ship his interest in education was shown 
in his intelligent advocacy of bi-lingual- 
ism in the schools. He went to Belgium 
on behalf of the Gaelic League and 
reported on bi-lingual instruction in that 
country. 

He was grave, and if it were not for 
his kindliness and his humour, Padraic 
Pearse would have appeared as a sombre 
young man. His head was always 
slightly bent as though in deep, but 
never anxious, reflection. His ideas 
were so composed that, when he ad- 



xn 



INTRODUCTION 

dressed you in conversation, parts of 
what he said might go into essays or 
lectures. He talked programmes. But 
nothing in his speech was dry or pedantic 
— so much enthusiasm — grave en- 
thusiasm, indeed — was in all he said. 
All his programmes were for the re- 
creation of a chivalry in Ireland. 

He never spoke unkindly nor even 
slightingly of any person — neither did 
his brother, the even gentler William 
Pearse who was shot with him. He 
was first of all a Christian man. Al- 
though he was a fervent Catholic, and 
although the Gaelic was the culture 
he always looked to, his father was an 
Englishman who had been a Protestant. 
Padraic Pearse was unmarried and he 
lived with his simple and gentle mother, 
with his brother and his two sisters. 

Eight years ago he decided to leave 
the office of An Claidheamh Soluis and 
put into practice his ideas of a national 



xm 



INTRODUCTION 

Irish education. He took a big dwelling- 
house in Rathmines, a suburb of Dublin 
— Cullenswood House, where the his- 
torian Lecky once lived — and opened 
there a secondary school for boys — 
Sgoil Eanna or St. Enda's. The school 
was to be bi-lingual — that is to say, 
it was to give instruction through Irish 
as well as through English. The whole 
atmosphere of the school was to be 
Gaelic. On its formal side the school 
was to give an intermediate education 
and prepare students for entrance into 
the universities. Thomas MacDonagh 
was one of the well-known teachers he 
placed upon his staff. Two years after- 
wards he turned Cullenswood House 
into a girls' school, Sgoil Ide or St. 
Ita's and brought St. Enda's into the 
country — into a big eighteenth-century 
mansion with extensive grounds, known 
as the Hermitage, Rathfarnham. It is 
curious to note that St. Enda's and St. 



xiv 



INTRODUCTION 

Ita's were the only lay Catholic schools 
in Ireland. 

A fresco painted in the hall of Cullens- 
wood House represented the boy Cuchul- 
lain taking arms. The Druid warns him 
that whoever takes arms on that day 
will make his name famous but will 
die an early death. Around the fresco, 
in Old Irish, was Cuchullain's reply: 
" I care not if my life has only the span 
of a night and a day if my deeds be 
spoken of by the men of Ireland." 
That was the spirit Pearse wished to 
kindle in his boys. He published an 
occasional review in connection with 
his schools — An Macaomh (The 
Youth). He hoped it would become, 
not solely a school review, but "a 
rallying point for the thought and 
aspirations of all those who would bring 
back again in Ireland that Heroic Age 
which reserved its highest honor for 
the hero who had the most childlike 



xv 



INTRODUCTION 

heart, for the king who had the largest 
pity, and for the poet who visioned 
the truest image of beauty." In the 
issue of An Macaomh for Christmas, 
1909, he stated the ideas he was striving 
to propagate : 

All the problems with which we strive 
were long ago solved by our ancestors, only 
their solutions have been forgotten. Take 
the problem of education, the problem, that 
is, of bringing up a child. We constantly 
speak and write as if a philosophy of educa- 
tion were first formulated in our own time. 
But all wise peoples of old faced and solved 
that problem for themselves, but most of 
their solutions were better than ours. Pro- 
fessor Culverwell thinks that the Jews gave 
it the best solution. For my part, I take 
off my hat to the old Irish. The philosophy 
of education is preached now, but it was 
practised by the founders of the Gaelic 
system two thousand years ago. Their 
very names for "education" and "teacher" 
and "pupil" show that they had gripped 
the heart of the problem. The word for 
"education" among the qJ4 G&el was the 



xvi 



INTRODUCTION 

same as the word for "fostering"; the 
teacher was a "fosterer" and the pupil 
was a "foster-child." Now "to foster" is 
exactly the function of a teacher; not 
primarily to "lead up," to "guide," to 
"conduct through a course of studies," 
and still less to "indoctrinate," to "in- 
form," to "prepare for exams," but primarily 
to "foster" the elements of character 
already present. I put this another way 
in the first number of An Macaomh when 
I wrote that the true work of the teacher 
may be said to be to help the child to 
realize himself at his best and worthiest. 
One does not want to make each of one's 
pupils a replica of oneself (God forbid), 
holding the self-same opinions, prejudices, 
likes, illusions. Neither does one want to 
drill all one's pupils into so many regulation 
little soldiers or so many stodgy little 
citizens, though this is apparently the aim 
of some of the most cried-up of modern 
systems. The true teacher will recognize 
in each of his pupils an individual human 
soul, distinct and different from every other 
human soul that has ever been fashioned 
by God, miles and miles apart from the soul 
that is nearest and most akin to it, craving, 

xvii 



INTRODUCTION 

indeed, comradeship and sympathy and 
pity, needing also, it may be, discipline and 
guidance and a restraining hand, but im- 
periously demanding to be allowed to live 
its own life, to be allowed to bring itself 
to its own perfection; because for every 
soul there is a perfection meant for it alone, 
and which it alone is capable of attaining. 
So the primary office of the teacher is to 
"foster" that of good which is native to 
the soul of his pupil, striving to bring its 
inborn excellences to ripeness rather than 
to implant in it excellences exotic to its 
nature. It comes to this, then, that the 
education of a child is greatly a matter, 
in the first place, of congenial environment 
and, next to this, of a wise and loving 
watchfulness whose chief appeal will be 
to the finest instincts of the child itself. 
In truth, I think that the old Irish plan of 
education, as idealized for boys in the story 
of the Macradh of Emmhain and for girls 
in that of the Grianan of Lusga, was the 
wisest and most generous that the world 
has ever known. The bringing together of 
children in some pleasant place under the 
fosterage of some man famous among his 
people for his greatness of heart, for his 

xviii 



INTRODUCTION 

wisdom, for his skill in some gracious craft, 

— here we get the two things on which I 
lay most stress in education, the environ- 
ment, and the stimulus of a personality 
which can address itself to the child's 
worthiest self. Then, the charter of free 
government within certain limits, the right 
to make laws and maintain them, to elect 
and depose leaders, — here was scope for 
the growth of individualities, yet provision 
for maintaining the suzerainty of the com- 
mon weal; the scrupulous co-relation of 
moral, intellectual and physical training, 
the open-air life, the very type of the games 
which formed so large a part of their learn- 
ing, — all these things were designed with 
a largeness of view foreign to the little 
minds that devise our modern makeshifts 
for education. Lastly, the "aite," fosterer 
or teacher, had as colleagues in his work of 
fosterage no ordinary hirelings, but men 
whom their gifts of soul, or mind, or body 
had lifted high above their contemporaries, 

— the captains, the poets, the prophets of 
their people. 

Civilization has taken such a queer turn 
that it might not be easy to restore the old 
Irish plan of education in all its details. 

xix 



INTRODUCTION 

Our heroes and seers and scholars would not 
be so willing to add a Boy Corps or a Grianan 
to their establishments as were their proto- 
types in Ireland from time immemorial 
till the fall of the Gaelic polity. I can 
imagine how blue Dr. Hyde, Mr. Yeats, 
and Mr. MacNeill would look if their 
friends informed them that they were about 
to send them their children to be fostered. 
But, at least, we can bring the heroes and 
seers and scholars to the schools (as we do 
at Sgoil Eanna) and get them to talk to 
the children; and we can rise up against the 
system which tolerates as teachers the 
rejected of all other professions, rather than 
demanding for so priest-like an office the 
highest souls and noblest intellects of the 
race. I think, too, that the little child- 
republics I have described, with their own 
laws and their own leaders, their life face 
to face with nature, their care for the body 
as well as for the mind, their fostering of 
individualities, yet never at the expense 
of the commonwealth, ought to be taken 
as models for all our modern schools. But 
I must not be misunderstood. In pleading 
for an attractive school-life, I do not plead 
for making school-life one long, grand 

xx 



INTRODUCTION 

picnic; I have no sympathy with the 
sentimentalists who hold that we should 
surround children with an artificial hap- 
piness, shutting out from their ken pain 
and sorrow and retribution and the world's 
law of unending strife; the key-note of the 
school-life I desiderate is effort on the part 
of the child himself, struggle, self-sacrifice, 
self-discipline, for by these things only 
does the soul rise to perfection. I believe 
in gentleness, but not in softness. I would 
not place too heavy a burden on young 
shoulders, but I would see that no one, 
boy or man, shirk the burden he is strong 
enough to bear. 

He goes on to say that the want of 
textbooks is one of the things that 
make bi-lingual teaching difficult in 
secondary schools. He announces that 
St. Enda's will soon have a series that 
will relieve the situation. "The first 
volume, a Geography of Ireland in 
Irish by Mr. MacDonnell, is ready for 
publication. It will be followed early 
in the new year by Parts I and II of 



xxi 



INTRODUCTION 

my Irish Conversation and Reading 
Lessons on the Direct Method, for 
which Mr. Edwin Morrow is making 
pictures. Then will come Book II of 
Virgil edited with an Irish commentary 
by Mr. O'Nolan, and later Mr. Mac- 
Donagh's School Anthology of Anglo- 
Irish Verse and my own School Anthol- 
ogy of Irish Verse." 

After he took up teaching he con- 
nected all his literary efforts with his 
schools. One year he produced a heroic 
pageant " Cuchulainn," and another 
year a little religious play "Iosagan" 
(Jesukin). "In writing the Cuchulainn 
Pageant," he said, "I religiously fol- 
lowed the phraseology of the Tain. 
In 'Iosagan' I have as religiously fol- 
lowed the phraseology of the children 
and old men in Iar-Connacht from 
whom I have learned the Irish I speak. 
I have put no word, no speech, into 
the mouths of my little boys which 

xxii 



INTRODUCTION 

the real little boys of the parish I have 
in mind — boys whom I know as well 
as I know my pupils at Sgoil Eanna — 
would not use in the same circum- 
stances." In 191 1 he wrote a Passion 
Play in Irish and with his students 
and the staffs of his schools produced 
it at Easter in the Abbey Theatre. 
A year later he published his single 
book of verse, "Suantraidhe agus Gol- 
traidhe" (Songs of Slumber and of 
Sorrow) written in the language of his 
Iar-Connacht parish. He had begun 
to put together in the pages of the 
Irish Review an anthology of poetry 
in the Irish language, making his own 
translations. Three of these transla- 
tions are given in this collection, for 
into them, I believe, he put much of 
his own personality. 

In the spring of 191 3 he made a 
visit to America and raised some funds 
for his schools by lecturing on Irish 

xxiii 



INTRODUCTION 

literature and on his own ideas of educa- 
tion. In the winter of 191 3 the Irish 
Volunteers were organized. Pearse had 
already formed a corps of Boy Scouts. 
He was made one of the Executive of 
the Irish Volunteers. In the summer 
of 1914 Mr. Redmond demanded that 
an equal number of his nominees be 
placed on this Executive. Pearse was 
amongst the very small minority that 
were altogether against the Parlia- 
mentary Party being given any control. 
A few months afterwards the European 
war broke out. 

"I am ready, for years I have waited 
and prayed for this day. We have the 
most glorious opportunity that has ever 
presented itself of really asserting our- 
selves. Such an opportunity will never 
come again. We have Ireland's liberty 
in our hands. Will we be freemen, or 
are we content to remain as slaves, 
and idly watch the final extermination 

xxiv 



INTRODUCTION 

of the Gael?" He wrote these words 
in an article published just before the 
insurrection. There spoke the man who 
would walk steadily toward martyrdom. 
Pearse was a man of supreme value to 
Ireland. But he was the one who, when 
lives had to be ventured, would make 
the nearest approach to death. He was 
a mystic, and for him a cause would 
become a call. He would not spare 
himself and he would not spare those 
who went with him. He was the very 
type of the implacable idealist. 

Those who saw Thomas MacDonagh 
in his academic robe and noted his flow 
of speech and his tendency to abstrac- 
tions might have carried away an image 
of one of those adventurous students 
who disputed endlessly in a medieval 
university. But MacDonagh was as 
far from being a pedant as was Pearse. 
He was a wonderfully good comrade, 
an eager friend, a happy-hearted com- 

xxv 



INTRODUCTION 

panion. He had abundance of good 
spirits, and a flow of wit and humour 
remarkable even in a Munster man. 
He had, too, an intimate knowledge of 
the humours of popular life in the coun- 
try and the country town which he never 
put into his writings. With his short 
figure, his scholar's brow and his domi- 
nating nose, he looked a man of the 
Gironde — a party, by the way, that 
he often spoke of. 

He was born in Cloughjordan, a 
town in the County Tipperary, and his 
father and mother were teachers in 
primary schools. He was trained by 
a religious order, and was indeed a 
religious novice in early youth. He 
became a teacher in a college in Kil- 
kenny and afterwards in Fermoy. While 
he was in Kilkenny he took up the study 
of Irish. Afterwards he went to the 
Aran Islands and to the Irish-speaking 
districts in Munster, and made himself 

xxvi 



INTRODUCTION 

fluent in the language. He published 
some volumes of literary verse. 

Just before Pearse opened his school, 
MacDonagh came to Dublin to look 
around him. He had written a play 
and wanted to have it produced in the 
Abbey Theatre, which was then under 
the brief direction of J. M. Synge. 
The play was "When the Dawn is 
Come." The scene is laid in a revolu- 
tionary Ireland of the future, and it is 
the tragedy of a leader whose master- 
idea baffled his followers. MacDonagh 
had joined the staff of St. Enda's when 
this play was produced. 

I knew him from the year before he 
came to Dublin. His great interest 
then was poetry. He knew poetry well 
in English, French, Latin and Irish, 
and was drawn to the classical poets — 
to Catullus, Dante and Racine. After 
he came to Dublin the poetry he wrote 
was more personal. What he wrote in 

xxvii 



INTRODUCTION 

the first four years is in "Songs of 
Myself." 

When this book was published he 
went to Paris for a while to do some 
reading. Then he took his M.A. degree 
in the National University. A professor 
in the College of Science, with Mac- 
Donagh, James Stephens and myself 
started the Irish Review. MacDonagh 
was associate editor, first with the three 
of us, and after an interregnum, with 
his friend Joseph Plunkett. He wrote 
a thesis, "Thomas Campion and the 
Art of English Poetry," and was made 
assistant professor of English literature 
in the National University, Dublin. 

His country was always in his mind 
but it did not fill it exclusively, as it 
might be said to have filled Pearse's 
mind. He would have welcomed a 
reasonable settlement of Irish political 
conditions from the government of 
Great Britain. Two years after its 

xxviii 



INTRODUCTION 

angry rejection by the National Con- 
vention, he said to me that the country 
should have accepted the Councils Bill, 
with its control of education and its 
possibilities of checking financial rela- 
tions between Ireland and Great Britain. 
I often had a vision of my friend in a 
Home Rule Parliament, working at 
social and legislative problems and 
perhaps training himself to become a 
Minister of Education. He was, when 
the Home Rule Bill reached its last 
stages, happily married, and was the 
father of the child he has addressed 
in "Wishes for My Son." Another 
child was born six months before the 
insurrection. In the end, the Home 
Rule question became something dif- 
ferent from an adjustment of legisla- 
tion as between Great Britain and 
Ireland. The English Conservative 
Party, with incredible folly, made its 
granting or its withdrawal a question 

xxix 



INTRODUCTION 

of military preparation and racial man- 
liness. Those in Ireland who had con- 
viction, courage and military organiza- 
tion would have their way, the Con- 
servative press and the Conservative 
leaders declared, and all conviction, 
courage and military organization were 
on the anti-home rule side. Then the 
Nationalists created their Volunteers. 
Thomas MacDonagh had a place on 
the Executive and the command of a 
corps. 

A poet with a bent towards abstrac- 
tions, a scholar with a leaning towards 
philology — these were the aspects 
Thomas MacDonagh showed when he 
expressed himself in letters. But what 
was fundamental in him rarely went 
into what he wrote. That fundamental 
thing was an eager search for something 
that would have his whole devotion. 
His dream was always of action - — of 
a man dominating a crowd for a great 

xxx 



INTRODUCTION 

end. The historical figures that ap- 
pealed straight to him were the Gracchi 
and the Irish military leader of the 
seventeenth century, Owen Roe O'Neill. 
In the lives of these three there was 
the drama that appealed to him — 
the thoughtful man become revolu- 
tionist; the preparation of the crowd; 
the fierce conflict and the catastrophe. 
Many things Thomas MacDonagh said 
and wrote were extraordinarily pro- 
phetic. Most prophetic of all was his 
mental dramatization of the end of 
Tiberius Gracchus. At last he, too, had 
the ascendency over the crowd; he saw 
the conflict in the city, and he'^faced the 
vengeance of the capitalists and the 
imperialists. 

One day about five years ago Thomas 
MacDonagh told me that a lady had 
called at the school to ask him to help 
her son at his Irish studies. The lady 
was Madame Plunkett. MacDonagh 

xxxi 



INTRODUCTION 

consented, and his pupil, Joseph Mary 
Plunkett, became his admirer and his 
friend. Joseph Plunkett was often ill. 
He looked a youth who could do little 
more than be a reader and an onlooker. 
Yet he was working hard at verse and 
had taken up many out-of-the-way 
studies. McDonagh's great enthusiasm, 
the adventurousness of his mind, his 
unquenchable desire to be making and 
shaping things must have been vital 
influences on the younger, frailer man. 
Joseph Plunkett, for all his ill-health, 
had remarkable power of will. I saw 
him in New York in September, 191 5, 
and I was impressed by the decision and 
command he had attained to. 

In the fall of 1913, after he had 
published his book of verse, "The Circle 
and the Sword," he and Thomas Mac- 
Donagh took over the Irish Review. 
Afterwards they formed a little literary 
theatre and produced plays written in 

xxxii 



INTRODUCTION 

their own circle, with some European 
masterpieces. Tchekof 's "Uncle Vanya " 
was amongst the plays they produced. 
Like his friend MacDonagh he joined 
the Irish Volunteers on their formation, 
and he, too, had a command and a place 
on the Executive. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett belonged to a 
Catholic branch of a family whose name 
was in Irish history for six hundred 
years. His people had remained loyal 
to the faith and the aspiration of the 
majority of the Irish people, and for 
that they had memories of disposses- 
sion and repression. But their most 
cherished memory was that of a martyr- 
dom. The venerable Oliver Plunkett, 
the last priest martyred in England, 
was of their family. The young man 
who was shot to death in Dublin Castle 
was a mystic, but a militant mystic — 
his symbols were the eternal circle and 
the destroying sword. He would war 

xxxiii 



INTRODUCTION 

for Ireland, and he would have the 
Irish people make war out of "the 
anger of the Sons of God." 

I have brought their history through 
the formation of the Irish Volunteers 
to the European war of 191 4. The 
things which made so many in Ireland 
willing to venture revolt — the threat 
of conscription, the actual over-taxation, 
the danger of famine, the exasperation 
caused by unfair and clumsy adminis- 
tration — these things belong to political 
and not to personal history. Pearse, 
MacDonagh and Plunkett became mem- 
bers of a secret political society that 
had revolution for its object; — like the 
liberators of Greece and Bulgaria, they 
strove to bring about foreign interven- 
tion. They made a great immutable 
gesture. With the good and brave 
Connolly, with the steadfast Clarke, 
with Shaun MacDermott, " kindly Irish 
of the Irish," and with the upright 

xxxiv 



INTRODUCTION 

Eamonn Ceantt, who with them signed 
the declaration, they have passed away 
from our sight, and they have become 
part of the memory of Ireland. 

In the poems here given of the poets 
mentioned; in the two poems by Roger 
Casement, and in the three translations 
made by Padraic Pearse, there is a 
unity. These are poems by Combat- 
ants. Their combat is passionate, intel- 
lectual, spiritual; in the end it exists for 
a country, and, to paraphrase the last 
line of Casement's sonnet, to win a rock 
where Celtic faith should bide its vow. 
No attempt need be made to estimate 
the achievement of the poets of this 
anthology. An Irishman knows well 
how those who met their deaths will be 
regarded — . " They shall be remem- 
bered for ever; they shall be speaking 
for ever; the people shall hear them for 
ever." 

If poetry comes out of intensity of 

xxxv 



INTRODUCTION 

vision Roger Casement was potentially 
a great poet. The vision that made him 
react so strongly to all forms of oppres- 
sion brought him to aid the blacks of 
the Congo and the Indians of Putumayo. 
In places that it needs the imagination 
of Conrad to make us glimpse he faced 
poison and disease. The sight of his 
own declining country made him eager 
to shatter his career and his life on the 
perils of European diplomacy and the 
dangers of political combinations. His 
life has been all action and the poems 
he has written seem to be few. In some 
of the Irish journals he has published 
ballads about events in Irish history. 
The three poems of his given here ap- 
peared in the last numbers of the Irish 
Review. The sonnet on Hamilcar Barca 
seems to me to be as remarkable as an 
arch raised to celebrate some forlorn, 
forgotten triumph. 

Padraic Colum. 



POEMS OF THE 

IRISH REVOLUTIONARY 

BROTHERHOOD 



WAYS OF WAR 

A terrible and splendid trust 
Heartens the host of Inisfail: 
Their dream is of the swift sword-thrust, 
A lightning glory of the Gael. 

Croagh Patrick is the place of prayers, 
And Tara the assembling place: 
But each sweet wind of Ireland bears 
The trump of battle on its race. 

From Dursey Isle to Donegal, 
From Howth to Achill, the glad noise 
Rings: and the heirs of glory fall, 
Or victory crowns their fighting joys. 

A dream! a dream! an ancient dream! 
Yet, ere peace come to Inisfail, 
Some weapons on some field must gleam, 
Some burning glory fire the Gael. 



WAYS OF WAR 

That field may lie beneath the sun, 
Fair for the treading of an host: 
That field in realms of thought be won, 
And armed minds do their uttermost: 

Some way, to faithful Inisfail, 
Shall come the majesty and awe 
Of martial truth, that must prevail 
To lay on all the eternal law. 

Lionel Johnson 



JOHN-JOHN 

I dreamt last night of you, John-John, 

And thought you called to me; 
And when I woke this morning, John, 

Yourself I hoped to see; 
But I was all alone, John-John, 

Though still I heard your call; 
I put my boots and bonnet on, 

And took my Sunday shawl, 
And went, full sure to find you, John, 
At Nenagh fair. 

The fair was just the same as then, 

Five years ago to-day, 
When first you left the thimble men 

And came. with me away; 
For there again were thimble men 

And shooting galleries, 
And card-trick men and Maggie-men, 

Of all sorts and degrees; 

3 



JOHN-JOHN 

But not a sight of you, John-John, 
Was anywhere. 

I turned my face to home again, 

And called myself a fool 
To think you'd leave the thimble men 

And live again by rule, 
And go to mass and keep the fast 

And till the little patch; 
My wish to have you home was past 

Before I raised the latch 
And pushed the door and saw you, John, 
Sitting down there. 

How cool you came in here, begad, 

As if you owned the place ! 
But rest yourself there now, my lad, 

'Tis good to see your face; 
My dream is out, and now by it 

I think I know my mind : 
At six o'clock this house you'll quit, 

And leave no grief behind; — 
But until six o'clock, John-John, 
My bit you'll share. 



JOHN-JOHN 

The neighbors' shame of me began 

When first I brought you in; 
To wed and keep a tinker man 

They thought a kind of sin; 
But now this three year since you're gone 

'Tis pity me they do, 
And that I'd rather have, John-John, 

Than that they'd pity you, 
Pity for me and you, John-John, 
I could not bear. 

Oh, you're my husband right enough, 

But what's the good of that? 
You know you never were the stuff 

To be the cottage cat, 
To watch the fire and hear me lock 

The door and put out Shep — 
But there, now, it is six o'clock 

And time for you to step. 
God bless and keep you far, John-John! 
And that's my prayer. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



SONG FROM THE IRISH 

(Taid na realta 'na seasamh ar an aer) 

The stars stand up in the air, 

The sun and the moon are gone, 

The strand of its waters is bare, 

And her sway is swept from the swan. 

The cuckoo was calling all day, 
Hid in the branches above, 

How my stoirin is fled far away — 

'Tis my grief that I give her my love ! 

Three things through love I see, 
Sorrow and sin and death — 

And my mind reminding me 

That this doom I breathe with my 
breath. 

But sweeter than violin or lute 

Is my love, and she left me behind — 

6 



SONG FROM THE IRISH 

I wish that all music were mute, 
And I to all beauty were blind. 

She's more shapely than swan by the 
strand, 
She's more radiant than grass after 
dew, 
She's more fair than the stars where they 
stand — 
'Tis my grief that her ever I knew! 

Thomas MacDonagh 



ENVOI TO 
"SONGS OF MYSELF" 

I send these creatures to lay a ghost, 

And not to raise up fame! 
For I shrink from the way that they go 
almost 
As I shrink from the way that they 
came. 

To lose their sorrow I send them so, 
And to lose the joys I held dear; 

Ere I on another journey go 

And leave my dead youth here. 

For I am the lover, the anchoret, 
And the suicide — but in vain; 

I have failed in their deeds, and I want 
them yet, 
And this life derides my pain. 

8 



ENVOI TO "SONGS OF MYSELF" 

I suffer unrest and unrest I bring, 
And my love is mixed with hate; 

And the one that I love wants another 
thing, ^ 
Less unkind and less passionate. 

So I know I have lost the thing that I 
sought, 
And I know that by my loss 
I have won the thing that others have 
bought 
In agony on this cross. 

But I whose creed is only death 
Do not prize their victory; 

I know that my life is but a breath 
On the glass of eternity. 

And so I am sorry that I failed, 
And that I shall never fulfil 

The hope of joy that once I hailed 
And the love that I yearn for still. 



ENVOI TO "SONGS OF MYSELF" 

In a little while 'twill be all the same, 
But I shall have missed my joy; 

And that was a better thing than fame 
Which others can make or destroy. 

So I send on their way with this crude 
rime 

These creatures of bitter truth, 
Not to raise up fame for a future time, 

But to lay the ghost of my youth. 



And now it is time to start, John-John, 

And leave this life behind; 
We'll be free on the road that we journey 
on 

Whatever fate we find. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



IQ 



OF A POET PATRIOT 

His songs were a little phrase 

Of eternal song, 
Drowned in the harping of lays 

More loud and long. 

His deed was a single word, 

Called out alone 
In a night when no echo stirred 

To laughter or moan. 

But his songs new souls shall thrill, 

The loud harps dumb, 
And his deed the echoes fill 

When the dawn is come. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



ii 



DEATH 

Life is a boon — and death, as spirit 

and flesh are twain: 
The body is spoil of death, the spirit 

lives on death-free; 
The body dies and its wound dies and 

the mortal pain; 
The wounded spirit lives, wounded 

immortally. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



12 



REQUIES 

He is dead, and never a word of blame 
Or praise of him his spirit hears, 
Sacred, secure from cark of fame, 
From sympathy of useless tears. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



13 



THOUGH SILENCE BE THE 
MEED OF DEATH 

Though silence be the meed of death, 
In dust of death a soul doth burn; 

Poet, rekindled by thy breath, 

Joy flames within her funeral urn. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



14 



WISHES FOR MY SON 

Born on St. Cecilia's Day, 1912 

Now, my son, is life for you, 
And I wish you joy of it, — 
Joy of power in all you do, 
Deeper passion, better wit 
Than I had who had enough, 
Quicker life and length thereof, 
More of every gift but love. 

Love I have beyond all men, 
Love that now you share with me 
What have I to wish you then 
But that you be good and free, 
And that God to you may give 
Grace in stronger days to live? 

For I wish you more than I 
Ever knew of glorious deed, 
Though no rapture passed me by 

15 



WISHES FOR MY SON 

That an eager heart could heed, 
Though I followed heights and sought 
Things the sequel never brought: 

Wild and perilous holy things 
Flaming with a martyr's blood, 
And the joy that laughs and sings 
Where a foe must be withstood, 
Joy of headlong happy chance 
Leading on the battle dance. 

But I found no enemy, 
No man in a world of wrong, 
That Christ's word of Charity 
Did not render clean and strong — 
Who was I to judge my kind, 
Blindest groper of the blind ? 

God to you may give the sight 
And the clear undoubting strength 
Wars to knit for single right, 
Freedom's war to knit at length, 
And to win, through wrath and strife, 
To the sequel of my life. 

16 



WISHES FOR MY SON 

But for you, so small and young, 
Born on Saint Cecilia's Day, 
I in more harmonious song 
Now for nearer joys should pray — 
Simple joys : the natural growth 
Of your childhood and your youth, 
Courage, innocence, and truth: 

These for you, so small and young, 
In your hand and heart and tongue. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



17 



O STAR OF DEATH 

Mortalem Vitam Mors cum Immortalis Ademit 

The earth in its darkness spinning 

Is a sign from the gate of horn 

Of the dream that a life's beginning 

Is in its end reborn — 

Dark symbol of true dreaming, 

The truth is beyond thy seeming 

As the wide of infinitude 

Is beyond the air of the earth ! 

Death is a change and a birth 

For atoms in darkness spinning 

And their immortal brood. 

The wisdom of life and death 
As a star leads to the gate 
Which is not of heaven or hell; 
And your mortal life is a breath 
Of the life of all, and your state 
Ends with your hail and farewell. 

18 



O STAR OF DEATH 

Wisdom's voice is the voice 
Of a child who sings to a star 
With a cry of, Hail and rejoice! 
And farewell to the things that are, 
And hail to eternal peace, 
And rejoice that the day is done, 
For the night brings but release 
And threatens no wakening sun. 
Other suns that set may rise 
As before your day they rose, 
But when once your brief light dies 
No dawn here breaks your repose. 



I followed a morning star, 

And it led to the gate of light, 

And thence came forth to meet our night 

A child and sang to the star. 

The air of the earth and the night were 

withdrawn 
And the star was the sign of an outworn 

dawn 
That now in the aether was newly bright. 

19 



O STAR OF DEATH 

For sudden I saw where the air through 

space was gone 
From the portal of light and the child 

and the sign o'er the portal — 
The star of joy a mortal leading 
In the clear stood holy and still, 
And under it the child sang on. 
I who had followed of happy will, 
Knew the dark of life receding — 
One with the child and the star stood a 

mortal. 

The child sang welcomes of the gate of 

light — 
Welcome to the peace of perfect night 
Everduring, unbeginning! 
Now let the mornings of the earth bring 

grief 
To other souls a while in darkness 

spinning, 
To other souls that look for borrowed 

light, ^ 
Desiring alien joys with vain belief. 

20 



O STAR OF DEATH 

Welcome and hail to this beyond all 

good, 
Joy of creation's new infinitude, 
That never will the spirit use 
Another time for life, and yet 
That never will the spirit lose, 
Although it pass, but takes its debt 
To life and time, and sends endued 
With gain of life each atom soul 
New fashioned to fulfil the whole. 

O star of death! O sign that still hast 

shone 
Out beyond the dark of the air! 
Thou stand'st unseen by yearning eyes 
Of mourners tired with their vain prayer 
For the little life that dies, — 
Whether holding that it dies 
That all life may still live on 
In its death as in its birth, 
Or believing things of earth 
Destined ever to arise 
To a new life in the skies. 



21 



O STAR OF DEATH 

Blinded with false fear, how man 

Dreads this death which ends one span 

That another may begin ! — 

Holding greatest truth a sin 

And a sorrow, as not knowing 

That when death has lost false hope 

And false fear, begins the scope 

Of true life, which is a going 

At its end, and not a coming, 

That the heart shrinks from the numbing 

Fall of death, but does not grope 

Blindly to new joy or gloom — 

Shrinks in vain, then yields in peace 

To the pain that brings release 

And the quiet of the tomb. 

O star of death ! I follow, till thou take 

My days to cast them from thee flake 

on flake, 
My rose of life to scatter bloom on bloom, 
Yet hold its essence in the phial rare 
Of life that lives with fire and air, — 
With air that knows no dark, with fire 

not to consume. 



22 



O STAR OF DEATH 

I followed a morning star 
And I stand by the gate of Light, 
And a child sings my farewell to-night 
To the atom things that are. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



23 



AT THE END 

The songs that I sing 

Should have told you an Easter story 

Of a long sweet Spring 

With its gold and its feasts and its glory. 

But the haste of the years 

Had rushed to the fall of our sorrow, 

To the waste of our tears, 

The hush and the pall of our morrow. 

Thomas MacDonagh 



24 



LULLABY OF A WOMAN OF 
THE MOUNTAIN 

O little head of gold! O candle of 

my house! 
Thou wilt be a guide to all who travel 

this country. 

Be quiet, O house! And O little grey 

mice, 
Stay at home to-night in your hidden 

lairs! 

O moths on the window, fold your 

wings ! 
Cease your droning, O little black 

chafers ! 



25 



LULLABY OF A WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN 

O plover and O curlew, over my house 

do not travel! 
Speak not, O barnacle-goose, going over 

the mountain here! 

O creatures of the mountain, that wake 

so early, 
Stir not to-night till the sun whitens 

over you ! 

P. H. Pearse 

{Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh) 



26 



IDEAL 

Naked I saw thee, 

O beauty of beauty! 

And I blinded my eyes 
For fear I should flinch. 

I heard thy music, 

sweetness of sweetness! 
And I shut my ears 

For fear I should fail. 

I kissed thy lips, 

sweetness of sweetness! 
And I hardened my heart 

For fear of my ruin. 

I blinded my eyes, 
And my ears I shut, 

I hardened my heart 

And my love I quenched. 

27 



IDEAL 

I turned my back 

On the dream I had shaped, 
And to this road before me 

My face I turned. 

I set my face 

To the road here before me, 
To the work that I see, 

To the death that I shall meet. 

P. H. Pearse 

{Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh) 



28 



THE WORLD HATH 

CONQUERED, THE WIND 

HATH SCATTERED LIKE DUST 

{From the Irish) 

The world hath conquered, the wind 

hath scattered like dust 
Alexander, Caesar, and all that shared 

their sway. 
Tara is grass, and behold how Troy 

lieth low — 
And even the English, perchance their 

hour will come ! 

P. H. Pearse 

{See note, Page 6g) 



29 



TO DEATH 

I have not gathered gold; 
The fame that I won perished ; 
In love I found but sorrow, 
That withered my life. 

Of wealth or of glory 

I shall leave nothing behind me 

(I think it, God, enough !) 

But my name in the heart of a child. 

P. H. Pearse 

{Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh) 



30 



TO DEATH (II) 

Long (seems) to me your coming, 

Old herald of God, 

friend of friends, . 

To part me from my pain! 

Syllable on the wind! | 
O footstep not heavy! 
hand in the darkness! 
Your coming seems to metlong. 

P. H. Pearse 

{Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh) 



31 



THE DIRGE OF OLIVER 
GRACE 

{From the Irish of Seaghdn Mac Walter Walsh) 

A dusky mist is on every hill, 
A mist that hath never come before; 
There is a mournful silence in the noon- 
tide 
Broken by the heavy voice of sorrow. 

The death knell sounds upon the wind, 
To us, alas, a messenger of grief! 
The black raven with hoarse note 
Proclaims the hour of the dead. 

Is it for thee, young noble one of my 

heart, 
The bean sidhe hath sorrowfully wailed ? 
In the lonely quiet midnight 
Full pitifully she lamented. 



32 



THE DIRGE OF OLIVER GRACE 

Every wall and rampart answered her 

Mournfully, sadly, with its echo; 

The cock hath not crowed according to 

his wont, 
Nor proclaimed to us time or season. 

Alas, young Oliver of my heart, 
'Tis thy death that she keeneth; 
'Tis it that turneth day to night, 
'Tis it that bringeth sorrow to men. 

Now, my grief I we have nought 

In the place of the good man but weep- 
ing and tears, 

Shedding of tears, and crying, and weep- 
ing 

Is our portion henceforth, and break of 
heart. 

Alas, death, thou hast struck down 

forever 
The blossom and beauty of our highest 

branch, — 



33 



THE DIRGE OF OLIVER GRACE 

My grief, no victory would satisfy death 
But the going to the grave of our people's 
leader. 

In clash of swords his hand was stout 
To guard the right of his kin and kith, 
Under the banner of his own noble father 
And Ormond's banner that found fame 
afar. 

Baile na Ciiirte was not wont to be 
Under cloud of sorrow that could not be 

lifted, 
Its faithful lord with his heart in anguish 
For the young man's death that was 

gracious in accomplishments. 

His name's true heir, its pride and 
ornament, 

Heir of his house in every airt in Ire- 
land, 

Like the oaken tree comely to be seen 

He promised to fling far his branches. 

34 



THE DIRGE OF OLIVER GRACE 

Yet that was not in destiny for the 
kindly man, 

But to go to the grave alone, all lone- 
some, 

Alas, 'tis a long woe in his day 

And a heart's grief to his spouse forever. 

She is a mother heavy in affliction 
Whose mate hath gone full early into 

the olay, 
Her children's father, her first beloved, 
Alas, 'tis she hath tasted sorrow! 

Never again will he follow the deer 
In dusky glens or on misty hills, 
His horn will not be heard sweetly blow- 
ing 
Or the voice of his hounds on the moun- 
tain ben. 

He will not be seen on a swift young 

horse 
Clearing a road over fosse and fence, — 

35 



THE DIRGE OF OLIVER GRACE 

His comeliness is forever changed, 
On his majesty hath fallen a mist. 

His gift-giving hand lieth still, 

His gallant heart is dead and lifeless, — 

Seed of soldiers, friend of poets, 

Love of the loud-chanting music-makers. 

The light of poesy thy fame needeth not, 
Yet it will emblazon on high my grief, 
As I shed tears at each day's end 
On the soldier's tomb for whom my 
heart is heavy. 

P. H. Pearse 

(See note, Page 6g) 



36 



ON THE FALL OF THE GAEL 

(From the Irish of Fearflatha O'Gnive) 

Woe is me for the Gael! 
Seldom a mind joyous 
At this hour among them, — 
All their noble are perished! 

A symbol one giveth of them : 
The remnant of a slaughter 
Tortured by pain of their wounds, 
Or a wake-watch returning, 

Or a barque's crew that a sea hath 
whelmed, 
Or a band sentenced to death, 
Or thralls in Gall's fetters, 
Irish under outlanders! 

They have bartered strength for weak- 
ness, 
Comeliness for uncomeliness, 

37 



ON THE FALL OF THE GAEL 

Courage for cowardice, — 
Hailed as heroes no longer. 

To the men of Fodla 'tis grief 

That foreign oxen have ploughed 
In place of their studs of slim steeds 
Every green field of Ireland. 

Gall-troops in their chiefs' meadows, 
White towers where stood their 

strongholds, 
Market-places in every countryside, 
Ricks on the heights of their hostings ! 

Lugh's Isle knoweth not 

Any of her spacious green fields, 
Smooth hills after the slaughter: 
Free Ireland will be an England ! 

The tribe of the Gael knoweth not 
Banba, nurse of their heroes, 
And Ireland knoweth not them, — 
They are both transformed. 



38 



ON THE FALL OF THE GAEL 

Woe that the King of Heaven's Rath 
To lead us from bondage 
Hath not sent us a new Moses, 
Tribe of battle-greedy Criomhthann. 

O Trinity that hath power, 

Shall this race be always in exile, 
Farther of! from Conn's city, 
Or shall we have a second glory? 

Shall the prophecy come true 
For the host of grim strangers 
Of the saintly seer of Conn's race, 
The pure patriarch Colm? 

If Thou hast consented 

That there be a new England named 

Ireland, 
To be ever in the grip of foes, 
To this isle we must say farewell! 



P. H. Pearse 

(See note, Page 70) 

39 



FOR HIS MOTHER'S 
CONSOLATION 

(Written before his own and his brother's execution) 

Dear Mary, that didst see thy first born 

Son 
Go forth to die amid the scorn of men 
For whom he died, 

Receive my two dear sons into thy arms 
Who also have gone out to die for men, 
And keep them by thee till I come to 

them. 
Dear Mary, I have shared thy sorrow, 
And soon shall share thy joy. 

P. H. Pearse 



40 



WHITE DOVE OF THE WILD 
DARK EYES 

White Dove of the wild dark eyes, 

Faint silver flutes are calling 

From the night where the star-mists rise 

And fire-flies falling 

Tremble in starry wise, 

Is it you they are calling? 

White Dove of the beating heart, 

Shrill golden reeds are thrilling 

In the woods where the shadows start, 

While moonbeams, filling 

With dreams the floweret's heart, 

Its sleep are thrilling. 

White Dove of the folded wings, 

Soft purple night is crying 

With the voices of fairy things 

For you, lest dying 

They miss your flashing wings, 

Your splendorous flying. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 

41 



THE GLORIES OF THE WORLD 
SINK DOWN IN GLOOM 

The glories of the world sink down in 

gloom, 
And Babylon and Nineveh and all 
Of Hell's high strongholds answer to the 

call, 
The silent waving of a sable plume. 
But there shall break a day when Death 

shall loom 
For thee, and thine own panoply appal 
Thee, like a stallion in a burning stall, 
While blood-red stars blaze out in skies 

of doom 

Lord of sarcophagus and catacomb, 
Blood-drunken Death! Within the col- 
umned hall 
Of time, thou diest when its pillars fall. 



43 



THE GLORIES OF THE WORLD 

Death of all deaths! Thou diggest thine 
own tomb, 

Makest thy mound of Earth's soon- 
shattered dome, 

And pullest the heavens upon thee for a 
pall. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 



43 



WHEN ALL THE STARS 
BECOME A MEMORY 

When all the stars become a memory 
Hid in the heart of Heaven : when the sun 
At last is resting from his weary run, 
Sinking to glorious silence in the sea 
Of God's own glory : when the immensity 
Of nature's universe its fate has won 
And its reward : when Death to death is 

done 
And deathless Being's all that is to be — 

Your praise shall 'scape the grinding of 
the mills : 

My songs shall live to drive their blind- 
ing cars 

Through fiery apocalypse to Heaven's 
bars! 

When God's loosed might the prophet's 
word fulfils, 

My songs shall see the ruin of the hills, 

My songs shall sing the dirges of the 
stars. Joseph Mary Plunkett 

44 



POPPIES 

O Sower of sorrow 
From the seed of your sowing 
Tomorrow the mower 
The wheat will be mowing. 

O Reaper of ruth 
Mid the roots of your reaping 
Springs the truth that in sleep 
Bears the fruit of all sleeping. 

O Binder of sheaves 
That are loose for your binding, 
Withered leaves you shall find 
And shall lose after finding. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett. 



45 



THE DARK WAY 

Rougher than death the road I choose 
Yet shall my feet not walk astray, 
Though dark, my way I shall not lose 
For this way is the darkest way. 

Set but a limit to the loss 

And something shall at last abide, 

The blood-stained beams that formed 

the cross, 
The thorns that crowned the crucified; 

But who shall lose all things in One, 
Shut out from Heaven and the Pit 
Shall lose the darkness and the sun, 
The finite and the infinite; 

And who shall see in one small flower 
The chariots and the thrones of might 

4 6 



THE DARK WAY 

Shall be in peril from that hour 
Of blindness and the endless night; 

And who shall hear in one short name 
Apocalyptic thunders seven 
His heart shall flicker like a flame 
'Twixt Hell's gates and the gates of 
Heaven. 

For I have seen your body's grace, 
The miracle of the flowering rod, 
And in the beauty of your face 
The glory of the face of God, 

And I have heard the thunderous roll 
Clamoured from heights of prophecy, 
Your splendid name, and from my soul 
Uprose the clouds of minstrelsy. 

Now I have chosen in the dark 
The desolate way to walk alone 
Yet strive to keep alive one spark 
Of your known grace and grace un- 
known; 

47 



THE DARK WAY 

And when I leave you lest my love 
Should seal your spirit's ark with clay 
Spread your bright wings, O shining 

Dove — 
But my way is the darkest way. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 



4 8 



THE EYE-WITNESS 

Blind, blind, blind — 
O you that witness speak, 
Shout to us from the peak 
Of seeing, shout on the wind. 

Down in the depths of the dark 
Helpless we grope and crawl — 
To our last despairing call, 
Eye-witness, hark! 

We have made this pit, 
We have shut out the light, 
Perpetuating the night 
And all the horrors of it. 

And we'd have dragged you down 

To the lowest depths of all 

But that you would not fall 

At our feet, while you held the crown. 

49 



THE EYE-WITNESS 

You nor sold your name 
Buying the right to live 
Nor took what we would give 
For your faith, to feed the flame. 

Doom, doom, doom, — 
We drove you away with blows, 
Drove you where no man knows 
But you, a gleam in the gloom. 

At your coming the dark fled away. 
All was alive with light — 
But on us the perpetual night 
Fell down and slew the day. 

Now we cannot see 
Whether we live or die, 
But you — stoop from the sky, 
Stoop and tell of the tree 

Stretching to light above 
From this hell's darkness below, 
Tell what you see and know 
Of the tree of death and love. 



50 



THE EYE-WITNESS 

Lean from the golden bars 
And if what we seek you find, 
Shout what you see to the blind, 
Shout down from the stars. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 



5i 



I SEE HIS BLOOD UPON 
THE ROSE 

I see his blood upon the rose 
And in the stars the glory of his eyes, 
His body gleams amid eternal snows, 
His tears fall from the skies. 

I see his face in every flower; 

The thunder and the singing of the birds 

Are but his voice — and carven by his 

power 
Rocks are his written words. 

All pathways by his feet are worn, 

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating 

sea, 
His crown of thorns is twined with every 

thorn, 
His cross is every tree. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 
52 



I 847-1 891 

The wind rose, the sea rose, 
A wave rose on the sea, 
It sang the mournful singing 
Of a sad centenary: 

It sang the song of an old man 
Whose heart had died of grief, 
Whose soul had dried and withered 
At the falling of the leaf: 

It sang the song of a young man 
Whose heart had died of pain 
When Spring was black and withered 
And the Winter came again. 

The wind rose, the sea rose, 
A wave rose on the sea, 
Swelled with the mournful singing 
Of a sad century. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 
53 



1 867 

All our best ye have branded 

When the people were choosing them, 

When 'twas Death they demanded * 

Ye laughed ! Ye were losing them. 

But the blood that ye spilt in the night 

Crieth loudly to God, 

And their name hath the strength and 

the might 
Of a sword for the sod. 

In the days of our doom and our dread 

Ye were cruel and callous, 

Grim Death with our fighters ye fed 

Through the jaws of the gallows; 

But a blasting and blight was the fee 

For which ye had bartered them, 

And we smite with the sword that from 

ye 
We had gained when ye martyred them ! 
Joseph Mary Plunkett 

54 



THE STARS SANG IN 
GOD'S GARDEN 

The stars sang in God's garden, 
The stars are the birds of God ; 
The night-time is God's harvest, 
Its fruits are the words of God. 

God ploughed his fields in the morning, 
God sowed his seed at noon, 
God reaped and gathered in his corn 
With the rising of the moon. 

The sun rose up at midnight, 

The sun rose red as blood, 

It showed the Reaper, the dead Christ, 

Upon his cross of wood. 

For many live that one may die, 
And one must die that many live — 
The stars are silent in the sky 
Lest my poor songs be fugitive. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 

55 



OUR HERITAGE 

This heritage to the race of kings: 
Their children and their children's seed 
Have wrought their prophecies in deed 
Of terrible and splendid things. 

The hands that fought, the hearts that 

broke 
In old immortal tragedies, 
These have not failed beneath the skies, 
Their children's heads refuse the yoke. 

And still their hands shall guard the sod 
That holds their fathers' funeral urn, 
Still shall their hearts volcanic burn 
With anger of the Sons of God. 

No alien sword shall earn as wage 
The entail of their blood and tears, 
No shameful price for peaceful years 
Shall ever part this heritage. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 

56 



YOUR FEAR 

I try to blame 

When from your eyes the battle-flame 

Leaps — when cleaves my speech the 

spear 
For fear lest I should speak your name. 

Your name, that's known 
But to your heart, your fear has flown 
To mine — you've heard not any bird, 
No wings have stirred save yours alone. 

Alone your wings 

Have fluttered: half-forgotten things 
Come crowding home into your heart, 
Filling your heart with other Springs: 



57 



YOUR FEAR 

Springs when you've sung 
Your secret name with happy tongue 
Loudly and innocent as the flowers 
Through hours of laughter proudly 
young. 

Young is the year 
And other wings are waking: near 
Your heart my name is knocking loud — 
Ah, be not proud! You need not fear. 

Fearing lest I 

Should wrest your secret from on high 
You will not listen to my name — 
I cannot blame you though I try. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett 



58 



STRIFE 

Because I used to shun 
Death and the mouth of Hell, 
And count my battle won 
When I should see the sun 
The blood and smoke dispel; 

Because I used to pray 
That, living, I might see 
The dawning light of day 
Set me on my way 
And from my fetters free; 

Because I used to seek 
Your answer to my prayer, 
And at your soul should speak 
For strengthening of the weak 
To struggle and despair; 



59 



STRIFE 

Now I have seen my shame 

That should thus deny 

My soul's divinest name; 

Now shall I seek to die 

By any hands but these; 

In battle or in flood 

Or any lands or seas 

No more shall I share ease, 

No more shall I spare blood; 

When I need to fight 

For Heaven or for your heart, 

Against the powers of light, 

Or darkness, I shall smite 

Until their might depart; 

Because I know the spark 
Of God has no eclipse, 
Now Death and I embark 
And sail into the dark 
With laughter on our lips. 



Joseph Mary Plunkett 
60 



IN THE STREETS 
OF CATANIA 

("The streets of Catania are paved with blocks of the 
lava of Mtna") 

All that was beautiful and just, 

All that was pure and sad 
Went in one little, moving plot of dust 

The world called bad. 

Came like a highwayman, and went, 
One who was bold and gay, 

Left when his lightly loving mood was 
spent 
Thy heart to pay. 

By-word of little street and men, 
Narrower theirs the shame, 

Tread thou the lava loving leaves and 
then 
Turn whence it came. 

61 



IN THE STREETS OF CATANIA 

iEtna, all wonderful, whose heart 
Glows as thine throbbing glows, 

Almond and citron bloom quivering at 
start, 
Ends in pure snows. 

Sir Roger Casement 



62 



HAMILCAR BARCA 

Thou that did'st mark from Heircte's 

spacious hill 
The Roman spears, like mist, uprise each 

morn, 
Yet held, with Hesper's shining point of 

scorn, 
Thy sword unsheathed above Panormus 

still; 
Thou that wert leagued with nought but 

thine own will, 
Eurythmic vastness to that stronghold 

torn 
From foes above, below, where, though 

forlorn, 
Thou still hadst claws to cling and beak 

to kill — 
Eagle of Eryx! — when the ^Egatian 

shoal 



63 



HAMILCAR BARCA 

Rolled westward all the hopes that 

Hanno wrecked, 
With mighty wing, unwearying, did'st 

thou 
Seek far beyond the wolfs grim protocol, 
Within the Iberian sunset faintly 

specked 
A rock where Punic faith should bide 

its vow. 

Sir Roger Casement 



6 4 



LOST YOUTH 

Weep not that you no longer feel the tide 
High breasting sun and storm that bore 

along 
Your youth in currents of perpetual song; 
Forin these mid-sea waters, still and wide, 
A sleepless purpose the great deep doth 

hide. 
Here spring the mighty fountains, pure 

and strong, 
That bear sweet change of breath to 

city throng, 
Who, had the sea no breeze, would soon 

have died. 
So, though the sun shines not in such a 

blue, 
Nor have the stars the meaning youth 

devised, 
The heavens are nigher, and a light 

shines through — 

65 



LOST YOUTH 

The brightness that nor sun nor stars 

sufficed, 
And on this lonely waste we find it true 
Lost youth and love not lost, are hid 

with Christ. 

Sir Roger Casement 



66 



THE SONG OF RED HANRAHAN 

The old brown thorn trees break in two 

high over Cummen Strand, 
Under a bitter black wind that blows from 

the left hand; 
Our courage breaks like an old tree in a 

black wind and dies, 
But we have hidden in our hearts the 

flame out of the eyes 
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan. 

The wind has bundled up the clouds high 

over Knocknarea, 
And thrown the thunder on the stones for 

all that Maeve can say. 
Angers that are like bundled clouds have 

set our hearts abeat; 
But we have all bent low and low and 

kissed the quiet feet 
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan. 

6 7 



THE SONG OF RED HANRAHAN 

The yellow fool has overflowed high up on 

Clooth-na-bare, 
For the wet winds are blowing out of the 

clinging air; 
Like heavy flooded waters are our bodies 

and our blood; 
But purer than a tall candle before the 

Holy Rood 
Is Cathie en, the daughter of Houlihan. 

W. B. Yeats 



Reprinted by permission, from 

"Poems" by W. B. Yeats. 

Copyright, iqo6, by The Macmillan Company. 



68 



NOTES 

By Padraic H. Pearse 

The World Hath Conquered. 

Just as in early Irish manuscripts, Irish 
love of nature or of nature's God so fre- 
quently bursts out in fugitive quatrains of 
great beauty, so in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth century manuscripts we find Irish 
hate of the English expressing itself suddenly 
and splendidly in many a stray stanza jotted 
down on a margin or embedded in a long 
and worthless poem. 

The Dirge of Oliver Grace. 

Oliver Grace, heir of the old baronial 
house of Courtstown (BailenaCuirte), County 
Kilkenny, died in 1604. Seagh&n Mac- 
Walter Walsh was son of Walter Walsh 
who was chief of his clan, "Walsh of the 
Mountains." The dirge has the simplicity 
and the sincerity which so many later dirges 
want. 



NOTES 

On the Fall of the Gael. 

Fearflatha O'Gnive was Hereditary Bard 
to O'Neill of Clanaboy. He was of the 
train of Seaghan an Diomais when he 
visited Queen Elizabeth in 1562. Sir Sam- 
uel Ferguson has given a vigorous but very 
free metrical translation in his "Lays of the 
Western Gael." I print only twelve of 
twenty-four quatrains. 



70 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Thomas MacDonagh. 

Through the Ivory Gate. 1902. 
April and May. 1903. 
The Golden Joy. 1906. 
Songs of Myself. 19 10. 
Lyrical Poems. 1913. 

Padraic H. Pearse {Padraic MacPiarais). 
Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe. 1912. 

Joseph Mary Plunkett. 

The Circle and the Sword. 1913. 



71 



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